To refer to the hair analogy, I used previously - if long, healthy hair is required, then regularly cutting is needed to encourage and stimulate growth and to remove split ends.

If healthy, thick (although not necessarily long) grass is required, then regular cutting will encourage and stimulate growth. Also, as grass trimmings will be minimal, with regular cutting, then they don't have to be collected and disposed of and can mulch back into the earth.

..... and a word on hand-pushed mowers - whilst they don't have a motor throbbing away, they are not exactly quiet, either.
I bought one years ago, to see if I could occasionally get away with mowing on a Sunday, when insufficient time on Friday evening (traditional Swiss time for mowing) or Saturday.

If you cut your grass regularly, the clippings are short, you can forgo the grass collection box and the nitrogen-rich clippings can feed the lawn - which is surely better for the environment than constantly feeding with a fertilizer.

If you cut your grass regularly, the clippings are short, you can forgo the grass collection box and the nitrogen-rich clippings can feed the lawn - which is surely better for the environment than constantly feeding with a fertilizer.

You don't actually "constantly feed with fertiliser" you use a slow release nitrogen based fertiliser to feed the grass for up to 2 months between applications.

Horticultural/home fertiliser is expensive because of this.

Agricultural fertiliser is basically a 1 shot job, makes everything grow very quick but doesn't last too long which is why you make 2 or 3 applications per season.

Mulching or "grass clippings" are good, but no enough if you want a green lawn for the full season

Can we shoot people who ride those feckin' 2-stroke mofa things? They are noisier. YES!!

And people can only have their car windows down if their radios are turned off. Turned down...I promise to comply...

Children, babies and dogs must have their mouths sewn shut in case they make noise. Children should be excluded full-stop, but a lot of communities will disallow trampolines, etc over the noise...shameful...especially when the one's who complain have teens ripping up and down the street on Mofas, Rollers and Chav-mobiles blasting what most would not consider to be music while their friends stand around smoking weed and blasting more crap out of the crappy speaker of the smart-phone.

Dogs, well I own one and there are plenty left out to bark, howl, etc all day/night...this is an issue. The owners of dogs that let them out at 11pm and then have to yell over and over for them to come in should have their mouths sewn shut or be shot and the dog re-homed. Seriously, if your dog doesn't come back in automatically after a piss, take it out on the leash regardless of the time. No one wants to hear you yell "Pumba, Pumba...PUMBA!!!!" over and over, day or night.

Teenagers aren't allowed to own music. They can own, just keep it to themselves...playing it on the bus or tram on speakerphone or, worse yet, on a pull-along amplified speaker that shoots behind them shows a lack of respect for others that parents have become too lazy to instill in their spawn, err, children.

You are not allowed to socialise outside at anytime - and if you make any noise inside the windows must be shut.

Everyone must drive a Tesla. Sure, glad to if you give me a 70k tax credit

Around our place nearly everyone has an electric mower which produce mainly a small amount of noise, use some electricity and basically put out no pollution, so I guess the average american car produces nothing also

Really, the idea that an electric mower or car pollutes less than an internal combustion powered one is a bit of a folly. They merely pollute differently, though they certainly make very little noise.

Just be glad you don't have a neighbor burning his grass with a torch all-day every other week.

Are you just a tiny bit jealous as you can't afford a house with a garden.....?

Well, I do have a house actually, just not in CH, is that ok? I live between CH and Socal due to my work, so when I get to decide between where to have a house, why would I choose CH? I mean, noway in heck will I stay here once I'm done working after so many countries I have seen and explored so far due to my travels and work (no offense meant to my fellow countrymen).

Also, really childish move to bring up jealousy. You just showed the foreigners visiting this forum one of our most major flaws (that I listed in another topic), the jealousy part... it made me a bit sad to be honest, but nice try. But then again, I have a semi-smile/sad expression on my face as I type this because I somewhat pity you, having to resort to such a childish and immature comment.

ok, so apparently the time has indeed come to leave this forum due to the great amount of general childishness encountered so far in terms of replies:

So in this forum I can clearly see, even the complaint sector, that some people (predominantly long time forum users) resort to various forms of primitive and immature behavior, towards new forums users, bringing up childish things that in fact do not even apply, calling others what in CH is actually considered rude.

I thought it would have been interesting to spark some debates here on the much free time at the moment, but not just here but in other topics too, I learned something: This forum is clearly made up of people longer in here that stick and support each other, while hijacking the forum thread and then turning it into basically, childish and personal attacks with topics made by newer folks, that they are not agreeing with. It all goes back to the original first topic. The same individuals that did it there, are doing it basically in almost all the few topics I write. Also, I encounter a lot of anti-foreigner comments from such longer forum user individuals, too much stereotyping too, too much for my liking as a global person respecting and accepting all cultures and having been raised to do so as well.

Too bad, this forum is definitely a great place it appears, just the mentality of some of the veteran forum users here is what I don't agree with. Sometimes not replying instead of hijacking threads and trying to make personal insults, that is what I would expect of such people. I want to apologize to the longer forum users that are staying neutral, even if they do not agree with me, this is not intended to them.

Well, I do have a house actually, just not in CH, is that ok? I live between CH and Socal due to my work, so when I get to decide between where to have a house, why would I choose CH? I mean, noway in heck will I stay here once I'm done working after so many countries I have seen and explored so far due to my travels and work (no offense meant to my fellow countrymen).

Also, really childish move to bring up jealousy. You just showed the foreigners visiting this forum one of our most major flaws (that I listed in another topic), the jealousy part... it made me a bit sad to be honest, but nice try. But then again, I have a semi-smile/sad expression on my face as I type this because I somewhat pity you, having to resort to such a childish and immature comment.

Not sure too much grass in California these days.....

You take things far too seriously by the way, you think anybody really cares what is written behind an anonymous user name, it's essentially worthless !

Not a single lawnmower hase yet been active up here in t'mountains- won't be long though.

However, having lived all my adult life in suburban England- I have to say the Swiss are very laid back about their grass. One neighbour in the UK would not tolerate a single weed or stray blade of grass, not even a humble daisy- forever clipping round and round his pristine lawn with scissors- which will never ever be seen around here, that is for sure. You probably have too many Brits as neighbours

Round where we live, people do seem to buy lawnmowers that are a little too big for the actual area of grass to be cut. I mean, for a 20m² area, you don't need a 40" top of the range petrol rotary mower (actually, you need—as a minimum—a sit-on lawnmower)

Anyway, our neighbour's house is mid-terrace (ours is end-terrace), and he also cuts the communal grass with the communal lawnmower. (The communal area is in the middle, with the groups of terrace houses around that, so if you're in a mid-terrace house, you have no direct access to your garden. Well, that you have to accept when you buy the house..) The advantage he had was that he could use this to cut his own grass. Very nice. Except for the fact that he was used to taking the lawnmower through our garden (via the garden gate at the front, past the dining room, round the back past the living room / terrace and all the way across our lawn to the end of his garden - and back again).

I was astonished when he first did it - as if it was perfectly normal and acceptable.

We put a lock on the garden gate to stop that and, with a little discussion, the message was accepted without further ado and no bad feelings.

Then he started wheeling the lawnmover through his house to his garden. That stopped, now they cut their grass with a little manual cutter, but his wife does 'make a lot of grumpy noises' when she's doing it, as if to make an indirect point. For some reason he won't use the manual mower.

Anyway, I really love the sound and the fresh smell of grass being cut; it's absolutely fantastic; a real summer feeling - more so in late summer; I absolutely love that time of year !

While it is true that there is a more relaxed attitude towards what is allowed to grow in one's lawn - if it's green you let it be, creeping charlie included - length of grass is a whole 'nuther ball game. If the lawn grows longer than 8cm one can expect tut-tutting. 10cm merits a post-it note.

We haven't needed to cut the grass yet - heck, it snowed over Easter - but we have the (quietly electric) machine serviced and at the ready, if only to stave off the censure of the all-powerful Geranium Polizei.

(Oh dear. I just looked at the weather forecast. It's going to rain on Saturday... which means that the grass might hit the 8cm danger zone by the time it's dry enough to mow on Monday. Living on the edge, I am...)

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